What makes a conservative?

Lots of people identify themselves as "conservatives," but seem so radical I'm almost tempted to call them liberals (the Bushies are quite radical, in a regressive sort of way). Of course, there are self-described conservatives who don't agree with Bush's policies. Yet they won't vote for a liberal. So, please clarify, what is a conservative now? And why is "liberal" a dirty word and "conservative" not? Thanks.

Elle
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"liberal" a dirty word.

Of course it took a north end of a southbound horse like Dubya to make "conservative" into an obscenity.

to paraphrase Melvin Udal

I think conservatism is like a cult because their 3 biggest ideas (abortion, tax cuts, military) are completely unrelated...and even opposed to each other. The only way the GOP can get everybody to the polls...is to get it's members to support all 3 contradictory policies.

This is where rightwing talk show hosts and media come in. At first, people tune in because they get support on the one GOP idea they do support - but they also realize that to 'join the team' they must buy into other ideas they find repulsive. Eventually, they do this...because the talk show host buys into all 3 ideas...and he is viewed as the respected leader, and often has callers who support all 3 ideas.

I bring this up because of personal experience. A friend of mine was a pro-choice, but was republican because she supported tax cuts. Then, she started becoming anti-choice, pro war, and moved even more rightward on tax issues. Coincidentally, about this time she started listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. In fact, she became hooked on right wing websites so much that all she wanted to talk about was politics. But, the odd thing was, she never wanted to discuss....just tell me that if I didn't agree, that I was on the side of the America haters. No discussion was allowed.

It was like she joined a cult. Over the summer, we ended our friendship. It was like her mind was set in stone, and disagreement was forbidden. I wonder who she was trying to convince - me, or herself?

There are right-wing radicals and left-wing radicals.

The current administration is right-wing radical. It's not typically conservative because they do not seem to believe in small-government, fiscal responsibility and limited government spending. In fact they have increased the size of the government, increased government spending and become fiscally irresponsible. That does not make them liberals. The traditional Conservatives have many points of dissention with this administration.

"Liberal" has become a dirty word because backlash conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have spent years convincing Americans that liberals are the cause of all their problems in live and have persecuted them mercilessly, also that liberals "hate America" and want to destroy the country. Conservatives spent 20 years building up a system of communications and media outlets that have the power to take a message, blow it into their "echo machine" and blast it out across the country reaching millions of people. It's been profoundly successful. Liberals have never done anything similiar nor have they been able to effectively counter the rights' charges.

that never existed.

It's about what used to be the hallmarks of conservatism-- things like fiscal responsibility and smaller federal government. The author talks about how these aspects of conservatism have been abandoned in favor of ideals more akin to fascism.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe40.html


The Ugly Mutation of American Conservatism
by Steven LaTulippe

<snip>

... I decided that it might be worthwhile to examine what was commonly agreed upon in 1994 as being "conservative," and compare it with the current policies being implemented by the Republican-dominated government.

#1 smaller government

Every conservative worth the name believes in smaller government. Ronald Reagan always cautioned that America’s greatness rests with her people and not in Washington. The government is usually our problem, he warned, not the solution.

Given this perspective, what has Bush delivered? Can anyone name a single government agency or program that has been eliminated in the first four years of Bush’s presidency?

On the contrary, President Bush and the Republican-dominated congress have ushered in an explosion of government spending, regulation, and bureaucracy that has seldom been seen in our history. President Bush has allowed a growth of federal spending that dwarfs that of President Clinton, even when the Iraq War is taken into account. Bush has created the largest single expansion of federal entitlements since LBJ with his Medicare prescription drug program. He even managed to avoid vetoing a single bill in his entire first term, a feat "achieved" by few presidents in our nation’s history.

Apparently, Bush hasn’t found any of the trillions in spending passed by Congress to be wasteful or extravagant.

#2 maintaining fiscal responsibility

<snip>

It appears as though all those years of preaching fiscal responsibility were mere rhetoric. Now that the Republicans are in power, they are rewarding their own special interest groups with public money in the worst tradition of Tip O’Neill and Dan Rostenkowski. It’s like a bad rerun of Animal Farm.

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